Nelson Mandela, a South African revolutionary turned prisoner turned international civil rights icon, passed away today at the age of 95, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday. Unjustly jailed for nearly 30 years during the height of the apartheid movement in his native country of South Africa, he stands alongside pioneer figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi as someone whose positive impact on the human race’s ability to acknowledge basic human freedoms and the central concepts of equality and democracy cannot possibly be underestimated.